NAVPLG’s Education Chair,
Deirdre Araujo, was elected to the National Association of Counties (NACo) Board of Directors on March 19, 2021. An active member of NAVPLG since 2015, Deirdre began serving as NAVPLG’s Education Chair in 2019 and led NAVPLG's pivot to the Zoom platform for hosting our annual meeting in June 2020.
In collaboration with volunteer management professionals, she organizes and hosts NAVPLG’s quarterly educational enrichment sessions that focus on professional development, the ethics of inclusion and DEI principles, and self-care, and other topics relevant to administrators of volunteer programs in local government. She has spent nearly 25 years nurturing the Exploratorium’s engagement with the community through volunteer, intern, and international fellow placements.
After starting in a research laboratory, this opportunity to learn and grow with such a wide variety of interesting and creative folk has been especially rewarding. An active volunteer herself, she’s served as a science fair judge, volleyball coach, twice as board president of the American Association of University Women in San Francisco, with Girls Incorporated of the Island City, and Friends of the Alameda Animal Shelter. One of her early volunteer roles was with Phi Beta Kappa of Northern California, welcoming the newest student members from local universities at their induction ceremonies. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake and its aftermath brought her back to California as a volunteer after living in Europe. Deirdre reflects on the wildfires, impending sea level rise, and the sequelae of income disparity and sees informed civic engagement as the key to community resilience.
